Halfords gas and a king keg kegger

[Buckie Brewer]

After getting a fancy new American style fridge for the house I have inherited the old fridge/freezer.
The freezer is not a frost free type so I'm not able to turn into a fermenting cabinet so I decided to make a keg fridge with a dalex tap on the outside for my king keg as per this post viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3386, thanks Russ.

As its a bit difficult to get anything home brew up here co2 gas is proving to very difficult but I do have a Halford's near enough by, I have cobbled together this to feed gas from the welding gas mini bottleshttp://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... yId_255210 into the keg and to monitor the pressure already inside.

Parts
1/8 Bsp Male to 1/8" Bsp Male Elbow
1/8 Bsp Male Centre Tee with Female outlets
1/8 Bsp Female Bulkead
1/8 Bsp Mini brass ball valve
1/8 Bsp Female to 4mm Straight Push In Pneumatic Fitting Nylon Tube Male Connector
All from http://stores.ebay.co.uk/cpmpneumatics (not my site other sellers are available)

And a 40mm Dial dry pressure gauge 0 to 30 psi 1/8bsp bottom entry (acquired from ebay)

Here are the pictures, I am waiting on the bulkhead fitting to finish the job.

The fridge outside with tap


The inside of the fridge with fizzy pish for non discerning guests and good bottles for discerning guests and me


The fittings




Close up of bottle and valve



Hope it works with the dalex, it does work with the barrel tap so here,s hoping. Any questions feel free.

[Fil]

nice job i bet you will get lots of interest from people looking for alternative co2 sources..
tho u could get 2 cornies in there

[Highlander]

Nice tidy setup. I'd seen the bottles in halfords and often wondered. Good to see it been done.

[fego]

Like this.

How do you get the beer out? Through the KK tap into a pipe adapter into a beer line to the Dalex? or have you drilled into the keg itself?

I've got a pressure driven beer engine which I've connected to the tap of a plastic keg which works quite well but falls off every now and then. It also glugs air back into the keg every now and then so I'd like to find a better way. I could use a Jubilee clip to fix the pipe adapter to the keg's tap I suppose, but that's fiddly and likely to distort the tap end so I'd like to get a plug and play solution.

[Buckie Brewer]

see this post
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3386
I'm waiting for the fitting so I can remove the barrel tap, then the beer line will go straight into the keg. I will post an update when its done.

[fordpopular]

Nice work, looks like a good alternative to a full size co2 bottle. also very portable

[alix101]

I used them when I struggled to get any co2 but they just work out to expensive, nice job ....but in the longrun sourcing a larger bottle would be far cheaper.

[Buckie Brewer]

That's the plan when I get some corneys, this is a replacement for the bulbs at the mo.

[T5FAU]

Excellent thanks for the previous post info. Looks like my plan will work great for a portable gas setup. So am I right in judging from the pic that 3/16" gas line is the right size for those mini regulators ?

Cheers

Tom

[Buckie Brewer]

Excellent thanks for the previous post info. Looks like my plan will work great for a portable gas setup. So am I right in judging from the pic that 3/16" gas line is the right size for those mini regulators ?

Cheers

Tom

The gas line came with the valve, check the packet should be coiled up at the back. But 3/16 is 4.7mm so should be ok as you see I have a 4mm push fit on the keg.

[Wezzel]

Just wondering. Is all CO2 food safe?

[Buckie Brewer]

All "chemicals" sold in the UK are regulated by COSHH, part of this is that the manufacturers must supply a MSDS data sheet (see below) stating what is in the container. The one supplied with these gas bottles only states CO2, no oil/vapour etc

http://docs-europe.electrocomponents.co ... 01e839.pdf

This is my reasoning behind using this type of gas bottle for replacing 8g bulbs for maintaining pressure in my top tap kk.I do not force carb with this set up.

[Fil]

Just wondering. Is all CO2 food safe?

when looking for co2 i rang around and spoke to BOC whos rep pointed me to welders as "it all comes from the same source" regardless of how its branded and sold.

[Wezzel]

Thanks Chaps, that's good to know.

[T5FAU]

Excellent thanks for the previous post info. Looks like my plan will work great for a portable gas setup. So am I right in judging from the pic that 3/16" gas line is the right size for those mini regulators ?

Cheers

Tom

The gas line came with the valve, check the packet should be coiled up at the back. But 3/16 is 4.7mm so should be ok as you see I have a 4mm push fit on the keg.

just to let any others know, a 4mm pushfit wont fit 3/16" gas line, but 5mm works a treat and doesnt leak past the 0.3mm difference between 3/16" and 5mm.